Snippets
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: Random one shots of a humerous leaning, that didn't justify a fic all of their own. Featuring Cas, Gabriel, Sam and Dean. Post-apocalypse and one based on the unaired 6.15
1. Chapter 1

A Blatant Abuse Of Power

"Gabriel!" Sam jumps up from the motel bed at the sudden arrival of another man in the room, abruptly throwing an arm across his eyes. "Why are you naked...?" he pauses. "and alive, I guess."

"Our Father, absent from Heaven...mysterious be his modus operendi." Gabriel quips, seemingly unabashed by his total lack of clothing. Sam reluctantly removes his arm from his face and tries to keep his eyes on the other man's, but they keep sliding down over his chest, the slight softness of his belly between his hipbones. The hair there is the same slight golden brown as the bangs hanging over his eyes.

"I got demoted Sammy...Dad plays favourites." Gabriel waves his arms expansively.

"You mean..." Sam wills himself to stop looking at Gabriel but his eyes are stuck on him.

Gabriel holds his fingers up in an imitation of a gun, aiming it at Sam's chest, he 'fires' and a breath of warmth strikes in Sam's chest.

"Sam Winchester...be my valentine?"

Martha Stewart Has A Lot to Answer For

...at least in Dean's humble opinion, he stands at the doorway to Castiel's room, wondering why, in all the months since he and Sam bought the place, he hadn't noticed what Castiel had been doing with his space.

Sam shambles across the landing.

"What're you looking at?"

Dean points wordlessly.

"Wow." Sam sounds as stunned as Dean feels. "That's very...wow."

"Yeah..."

"White." Sam amends. "That, is all...very...white."

"You think he's homesick?" Dean's eyes are starting to hurt, what with the combination of skylight, bright day and Castiel's idea of decor. White walls, white bed frame, white bedding, white rugs on the white painted floor, white bookcase filled with books covered in white leather, white comforter, white dresser...he might be going blind.

"Maybe he just...likes things clean."

They close the door slowly and go about their separate business.

The next day Castiel finds a white bear with silver wings and a halo on his bed.

Dean will spend the rest of his life denying the accusation that he bought it.

Google Thyself

Dean sits in the trailer everyone in this bizarre place seems to think is his, and he googles himself. Or rather, he googles the actor who plays...He shakes his head, too damn confusing. First he's a book and now this? What's next, action figures?

One hour later he's watched clips of 'My Bloody Valentine' and 'Ten Inch Hero'.

He honestly doesn't know what to say, and he's a little afraid of his own hair now, which is unsettling. Plus it's weird to watch a movie when you know full well that you are the killer.

He goes through a few more searches.

'Devour' weirds him out because he's watching himself have sex, only he's younger and he's not himself. It also makes him out to be the son of Satan, which is pretty ironic.

Another foray into google follows.

He's pretty sure that 'House of Wax' is the worst thing he's ever seen, in that watching his brother getting peeled apart after being scalded is too horrifying to watch. He really hopes nothing that bad happened to him in the pit in any case.

He's starting to wonder if this guy has ever been in anything good.

He goes through the Supernatural Imdb page and searches for a couple of people who look familiar.

Turns out his Dad was in some God awful Dr. Sexy M.D rip-off, the guy who plays Chuck is in something as a chronic nympho and Crowley was in something about space cowboys.

He really wishes he'd been abducted by fairies again, because that was less disturbing.

And why was the Trickster, freaking Gabriel of all people in some war thing where he got to be an awesome soldier? If it wouldn't physically hurt him to admit it Dean would have said he was jealous. Though he really wishes he hadn't watched that clip of 'Open Water 2' there were parts of the little archangel he'd never wanted to see, especially not underwater.

He's almost sick of looking at this stuff, but he stumbles upon some clips from the show, and there's nothing weirder than watching moments from your life in a third person perspective. He can't look away.

Their Mom dying, something he can barely remember.

His Dad dying.

Sam dying.

His own death.

There are good things in there too, but it's the bad he can't take his eyes away from, all the things he can remember, but presented with crystal clear audio and instant recall.

There's footage of Hell and Heaven and people he's long since forgotten about, people he saved.

There's a video of his first meeting with Castiel.

He clicks back to imdb and looks the guy up.

Well that's not a name.

He's not one to talk, because the guy who plays him also sounds ridiculous – but seriously, that is NOT a name. He scrolls through his credits.

"Girl, Interrupted" reminds him too much of the future version of Castiel. "Stonehenge Apocalypse" is just plain bad. He follows a few more links.

After watching the whole of 'Karla' he's pretty sure he can't look Cas in the eye ever again.

It takes three weeks for him to stop jumping whenever the angel appears.

War Is Not A Game

"They're attack on the left flank!" Gabriel's voice is hoarse, shouting over the sounds of battle and the screams of the dying.

"We don't have the troops to cover it, get me a specific location." Castiel shouts back, knowing their resources are dwindling every second, that they are losing territory, losing warriors.

"Cover me, take point." Gabriel really wishes he was better at combat, that he hadn't fled from every fight he was presented with. Perhaps it would have helped.

"I've got it...good luck brother." Castiel exchanged glances with the archangel.

"And to you Castiel." He replies grimly.

"Dude!" Dean throws on the lights and glowers at the two angels crouched in front of the TV. "It is three am, turn it off or quit yelling."

Neither man looks up from Call of Duty.


	2. Chapter 2

For Mature Audiences Only (or rather – I can't believe I forgot to put this in)

"Hey Sam, check it out, Cas has a soul patch."

"Dean, seriously, stop googling – it's all bad just, leave it alone." Sam is really regretting his lack of resistance to Dean's sudden interest in the actors who play them.

"Come on Sam, just look...woah." Dean's eyes go wide and he hits pause with a lightning quickness heretofore reserved only for porno's.

"What?"

"Mmmm?" Dean's face is carefully blank. "Oh, nothing, thought I saw Heidi Klum." He waits for about thirty seconds, then out of the corner of his eye Sam sees him slip the headphones into the audio jack.

It says a lot that as soon as Dean doesn't want him to see something, he becomes very interested.

Yawning extravagantly he tips his head and gets a look at the screen, only to tip over with a yell.

"What the hell are you watching?" He scrambles up from the floor, catching the beet red flush on Dean's face. "Is that...is that even physically possible."

"Nope." Dean says without thinking. "Not that..." He catches Sam's glare. "Dude I've never tried it."

"Why are you even watching that?" Sam still can't quite make his eyes leave the figure on the screen.

"It's...Cas, man." He chuckles to himself. "When are we going to see something like that again?"

"Hopefully, never." Sam moves away from the laptop.

"Not unless he takes up yoga." Dean replays the clip, then snaps his fingers. "Which, would probably help with all the stress from that whole heaven thing." He looks down at the screen. "It would definitely help him to relax."

When You Were Young...

Dean watches the young woman work her five year old son into a jacket. He thought being a hunter was hard, but hunting and being a single Mom? He's kind of glad he was old enough to help with Sam when their Mom died – Dad wouldn't have stood a chance.

It's a thought born from the presence of a young boy, and the fact that they're in Lawrence again, only back in time thanks to a curse he really wishes he'd had the sense to avoid. He's mired in the early 80's with only a semi-retired hunter (huntress?) and a poltergeist to keep him busy until Sam and Cas work out a way to get him back.

"You have someone you can leave him with? Until we take this thing out, might be wise to keep him out of it."

Catherine nods. "I sit for a friend sometimes, she can take him." She looks down at the dark haired boy. "That ok sweetie? You like Mary don't you?" He nods. "You don't mind playing with Dean?" he shakes his head.

"Mary...Winchester?" Dean asks, with a rising sense of dread and déjà vu.

"Yeah...I knew her back when she was hunting...you know her?"

"Just by reputation." He's glad he hadn't told this woman his full name.

As he drives them to his onetime family home he shakes off the feeling of anxiety. It's a coincidence, and once you've seen as much as he has, you can't put much stock in them. Catherine shoos the young boy out of the car when they get there, taking him up the path to the front door. Dean sees his younger self come running out of the back yard. He grabs the boys arm and pulls him back with him, running out of sight. The boy goes willingly, not perturbed by Dean's boisterous hold on him.

He doesn't remember playing with the kid, but maybe he just forgot, or maybe it didn't happen the first time round.

His head hurts.

Mary pauses in her talk with Catherine to yell after them.

"Dean, don't play rough! You're bigger than him!"

Catherine calls after her son.

"Jimmy, remember what happened last time, do NOT make me take you to the ER again!"

Dean blinks, remembering the kid's unruly dark hair and bright blue eyes.

His life is so many layers of weird.


	3. Chapter 3

The Death of a Salesman, Interrupted

The camera records the young woman's face across the steel table, bolted to the floor. Her gaze is unimpressed, a surreal blue that will never carry to a recorded image with enough clarity to show the board what they're dealing with – a fractured mind of the most disturbed.

Peering out from beneath curtains of blond hair her face remains stony as the interviewer begins with his questions.

"Can you tell me your name?"

And, as always the same response.

"I'm James Novak." And a bonus, today on the nineteenth day of questioning, ever since she was discovered near an open grave opposite an abandoned muffler factory several miles away.

"And I am so sick of this bullshit."

Too Much Juno

Castiel pads down the garden path in his slippers, coffee in one hand. The flag on the mailbox is up, and he opens it expecting either another sheaf of bills or a belated birthday card from Gabriel, because it usually takes him three months to remember to buy one, and another month to remember to send it.

Instead, as he opens the front of the mailbox, chapsticks roll out and drop onto the sidewalk. There are at least fifty, the box crammed full of tiny plastic tubes in various colours. Cherry, bubblegum, aloe, vanilla, cinnamon and peach, all cascading to the ground with dull tapping sounds. He sets his coffee down and picks them up, putting them into the pockets of his dressing gown.

Back inside the house he chances a look through the curtains at the house across the street, Dean is sitting on his porch, ostensibly reading the paper. He looks up as Castiel's curtains twitch, grinning.

Dean looks back down at the sport section, wondering when the stranger across the street will get the nerve up to come over.

It's A Passable Life

Castiel sorts through the piles of mail that come out of the sacks delivered that morning.

Each letter is clearly marked and has its own pigeon hole in which to go.

He finds this remarkably reassuring – that each one has its place, and there are no exceptions.

Audition

This...could not be right.

Dean walked into the room, expecting all the other candidates to be milling around, taking stock of each other and internally rating their chances.

There was only one other guy there, and to be honest, Dean really couldn't see him as 'Demon Hunter' material. He was too slight, too pale and elegant to be cast as the elder Winchester brother.

"Hi" he looked up from his magazine briefly and nodded at him, which Dean took as a friendly gesture. "You trying out for Jensen Winchester?"

He shakes his head. "Jared."

"Oh, cool." Dean sits down and looks over at the magazine article, Palin still winning the run for presidency, no surprises there. "Guess it's just you and me then."

"Looks like." He flips a page and then extends his hand. "Castiel."

"Dean."


	4. Chapter 4

_Wow...so these are a little depressing, not gonna lie, especially the last one. Warnings for deaths, depressingness and mental problems. _

Motherhood

A few months after John and Mary Winchester perish in Azazel's attack, Sam crawls into Castiel's lap and asks him to tell a story.

This isn't something the host had prepared him for, the possibility that in raising the two vessel's he would have to entertain them. He tries nonetheless.

"A long time ago there were two brothers, and though both of them loved the other very deeply, they were driven to conflict..."

The look on Sam's face when he tells of Lucifer's fall makes him deeply uncomfortable. The sadness and inconsolable grief of one who cannot imagine life without his elder brother.

Dean sits cross legged on the end of the bed. "I'd never fight Sam, never."

Castiel looks at the two vessels, Dean holding onto Sam and shushing him to sleep, and prays for the first time that the boys will remain safe with him, and not be pushed into service.

Being Supernatural

Dean pauses on the stairs as the creaking on the upper level continues.

"Sam? You coming or what?"

Sam hesitates.

"What if it's something...scary?"

"What could be scarier than us?" the young vampire reasons.

"A bigger one of us?" For a werewolf Sam can be kind of a fraidy cat.

Castiel looks down at the two men, wondering why after ten years as a ghost in this place he has now accrued two roommates in a single week.

Somehow It Feels Real

Sam backs against the wet brick of the alley wall.

"Dean...Dean please don't do this, please, just listen to me..."

Dean presses the knife against his throat, the tears running down his face matching those on Sam's skin. He looks to his left, pleading gaze directed at nothing.

"No." Sam moans, despair slowly outweighing his fear. "Dean, listen to me, it's just us. Just us here, there's no one..."

Dean isn't listening, he's still looking into the mid-distance.

"Do I have to..."

Castiel lays a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"I wish I didn't have to ask this of you." Dean meets his eye and feels calm wash over him, Castiel needs him to do this, it's ok – it's ok if an angel asks you to do something, and you do it.

"Dean?" Sam's voice is small and hopeless.

"I'm sorry Sam." Dean tightens his grip on the knife.

Alone in an alleyway, Dean murders his only friend, his only relative, the invisible angel always at his side.


	5. Chapter 5

Mistletoe

The ball around them is in full swing, everyone wearing masks and costumes to rival the decor in outlandish expense and extravagance. Everyone that is except Dean Winchester, turning in slow circles with Castiel Novak, former secretary to one of his business contacts. Though tonight he looks nothing like he did the first time they met in Zach's office, gone are the owlish glasses, the perpetual nest of cowlicks and the baggy, ill-fitting suit. The man in his arms is standing tall, meeting his gaze with unflinching and uncovered blue eyes.

Dean casts a glance upwards and notes the mistletoe hanging above them. It reminds him briefly, not of the old custom, but of a troubling conversation from the previous evening, when, in his guise as The Hunter, he had pinned some new costumed psycho beneath him, long dark wings trapped beneath his knees. The masked creature had noted the plant above them, and Dean had felt the lithe form between his legs move against him, like a lover and not a nemesis, before he was thrown off and the man, The Angel, escaped.

"You know..." Castiel's eyes follow his own and catch on the mistletoe. "Mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it."

"A kiss can be deadlier..." and hadn't The Angel said the same thing? And here, Castiel had taken his own line. "If you mean it..." He finishes, and feels the other man's body stiffen against his as wide eyes find his own. Eyes so achingly familiar and last seen behind a black mask, crudely sewn together by a desperate, unhinged man.

"Does this mean we have to start fighting?" Castiel whispers, the two of them now motionless on the swirling, teaming dance floor.

Dean shakes his head, and presses their lips together.

Gigantiel (or Monsters vs Good Taste)

He wakes up on what should be the first day of his honeymoon, but that in reality is his first day as a prisoner. The cell is large and grey and windowless, but within seconds of him waking in the strange place a wall slides open and admits him to a larger chamber. This is also windowless, but in the ceiling is a globe which emits something made to resemble daylight.

It makes him feel better.

It is only when other cells begin to open, disgorging their occupants, that he remembers that he is no longer simply 'Castiel', that yesterday, what should have been the best day of his and Anna's lives together, was ruined by the radiation that had poured into him from a random piece of space junk, rendering him inhuman.

Looking down on his tiny cellmates he is forced to remember that he is now 200 feet tall.

Dean looks up at the new arrival with interest. Castiel looks down on him with confusion.

"Hey Sammy! New guy!" He turns and shouts, before walking up to Castiel's giant foot and touching his toe with one scale dappled hand.

"What are you?" Castiel asks, somewhat impolitely.

"Swamp monster." Dean shrugs his shoulders, fins fanning impressively and the spines on his back extending and relaxing. "You born a giant or did you just eat too much?"

"Radiation." Castiel huffs.

"That'll do it." Sam grunts, and Castiel yelps at the sight of the giant fuzzy caterpillar. Sam yelps back, startled.

"Don't scare him, you scare him - he pisses like a racehorse." Dean slaps Castiel's toe meaningfully. Sam glowers at him.

"Do not."

"Do too, you fraidy-caterpillar."

"Will you knock it off?" Bobby looks up from his makeshift distillery, still trying to brew some decent scotch out of Sam's natural mucus and the fish heads left over from Dean's meals (with, it has to be said, some success).

"That's Bobby." Dean tells Castiel. "He's a mad scientist."

"I'm not a scientist, idjit." Bobby shouts back. "Never could get my head around particle physics."

Dean ignores him, having just spotted something more interesting – a challenge.

"You know...you're pretty hot for a giant."

"Oh Christ." Sam starts spinning himself a cocoon, he really doesn't want to know how the creature from the boundary-less lagoon and Gigantor the stupidly hot will go about getting it on.


	6. Chapter 6

The Big C

Castiel drags Sam back across the street by his collar, banging open the door to Dean's house (never locked) and thrusting the blood hound inside, yelling as he does so, "Third time this week Dean, lock him up!"

Dean comes down the stairs, tugging on a flannel shirt as he does so. "He get into your place again?"

"I woke up and he was licking my foot." Castiel glowers accusingly at Sam, who's still sitting at his feet, staring up at him.

Dean glares at his dog, then turns his eyes on Castiel, considering.

"What kind of cancer do you have?" he asks.

Castiel freezes, he hasn't told anyone about it yet – Not Gabriel, Anna or Michael, certainly not Lucifer.

"I don't..."

"When my dad had lung cancer Sam used to follow him around the whole time, dogs pick up on it in your scent, or something." Dean says gently. "I'm sorry for..."

"Melanoma, stage four." Castiel murmurs.

"Shit." Dean comes the rest of the way down the stairs. "How long...?"

"Maybe a year, hopefully a year." Castiel tries to rise above the despair that surfaces in him.

"Shit." Dean says again, with feeling. "What are you going to do?"

Castiel looks at his neighbour, remembering all the times he's watched him working in his yard or on his car in the summer, and yet they've never really spoken before now. Such a lot of wasted time.

"Anything I want." He mutters, hands sliding up Dean's arms to his shoulders as he leans up to kiss him.

Relieved when Dean kisses him back, pushing him through the front room towards the couch, Sam jumping at their heels.

The Never-ending Story

"Kids, you all know the short version of how I met your father – that thing with the heavenly war? But this is the full story, and it all starts way back when I was four years old..."

Grace and Mary nudge Jimmy and roll their eyes.

This is going to take forever.


	7. Chapter 7

_Another one based off of 'The Big C' it's truly an awesome show and I am a little in love with her brother _

Dean wipes the bar down and then eases his back with one hand. He hates double shifts, he hates Lisa's doe eyes, aka the reason he's working a double shift so she can go to parent teacher night at her kid's school. His shirt is sticking to his back, and damp under the arms with sweat, the bar is dark and scent of smoke and spilled beer clings to him.

He's also trying to work out how to get the leftover burgers from the grill outside without Sam wondering why he wants them.

As if summoned by thought, Sam appears with a tray of empty beer bottles.

"Ok...so that bachelorette party was scary."

Dean smirks to himself as he wipes off the beverage hose. "You scare easy, they were just a little drunk."

"A little? One of them followed me into the restroom." Sam drops the bottles into the trash. Dean winces, Cas is not going to be happy about the state of the recycling.

"Yeah well get used to it, there're a lot of weddings in the spring, that means a lot of bachelorettes and a hell of a lot of groping."

"Great." Sam disappears into the kitchen. "Hey... what do you want to do with these leftovers? Trash 'em?"

Dean considers it for a moment, but after all there are bigger things at stake here than his pride.

"Actually...I need those."

Sam sticks his head around the door.

"Seriously? You just worked a double I'm sure you can afford your own White Castle."

"They aren't for me."

"You growing a carnivorous plant or just experimenting with meat underwear?"

Dean wrinkles his nose in disgust.

"No I just...ok, you really want to know?"

Sam's interest is piqued, usually Dean doesn't get embarrassed.

"Yeah."

Dean sweeps into the kitchen, piling the cooling burgers onto a paper plate, along with a half cup of slaw, the side salad from one of the bussed plates and half a piece of pie from another. Sam follows him through the back door of the kitchen and out into the alley beyond.

It's dark, but the outline of the dumpster is clear under the glow of the frosted window above it. Dean raps on the side of it one handed and he hears the rustling noise of limbs being straightened and moved around. The top slides open, and Sam backs away a little as Castiel's head pops out, dark hair flat and mussed, Buddha T-shirt doing little to hide the skinniness of his body and the fragile bones of his long arms. Dean holds up the plate of food and Castiel takes it eagerly, stuffing a browned patty into his mouth before gesturing vaguely at Sam.

"Who's he?" it comes out indistinct and muffled by the burger, but Dean answers anyway.

"Sam, he's my brother, remember."

"Oooh." Castiel's eyes open wide as he rolls his head back, almost a pantomime of realisation. "Hi there Sam." He says, picking up the pie as he does so.

"Yeah...hi...Dean who is this?" Sam asks, sotto voiced.

"This is Castiel, he's kind of a green freak." Dean says as if that explains everything.

"He lives in our dumpster?"

"I live in it, I eat out of them and I have sex in here to." Castiel says seriously, and Sam doesn't fail to notice the look that passes between his brother and the shaggy eco-warrior.

"Ok...well I'm going back inside...see you later Dean."

"Bye Sammy." Dean waves him off and Sam pretends not to see Castiel moving to one side so that Dean can climb into the dumpster with him. Even if he had mentioned it the next day, Dean would most definitely had held firm that, whilst not perfect, his relationship with a dumpster diving pseudo-hippy was possible the best one he'd had in a long while. Besides, sex in a dumpster on a musty sleeping bag, was still sex. And the dude was a yogi after all.


End file.
